"But,
Liza, it's vile ... it's insulting," said Mashenka, breathless with
indignation. "It's so mean, so low! What right had she to suspect me and
to rummage in my things?"

"You
are living with strangers, miss," sighed Liza. "Though you are a
young lady, still you are ... as it were ... a servant.... It's not like living
with your papa and mamma."

Mashenka
threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly. Never in her life had she been
subjected to such an outrage, never had she been so deeply insulted.... She,
well-educated, refined, the daughter of a teacher, was suspected of theft; she
had been searched like a street-walker! She could not imagine a greater insult.
And to this feeling of resentment was added an oppressive dread of what would
come next. All sorts of absurd ideas came into her mind. If they could suspect
her of theft, then they might arrest her, strip her naked, and search her, then
lead her through the street with an escort of soldiers, cast her into a cold,
dark cell with mice and woodlice, exactly like the dungeon in which Princess Tarakanov was imprisoned. Who would
stand up for her? Her parents lived far away in the provinces; they had not the
money to come to her. In the capital she was as solitary as in a desert,
without friends or kindred. They could do what they liked with her.

"I
will go to all the courts and all the lawyers," Mashenka thought,
trembling. "I will explain to them, I will take an oath.... They will
believe that I could not be a thief!"

Mashenka
remembered that under the sheets in her basket she had some sweetmeats, which,
following the habits of her schooldays, she had put in her pocket at dinner and
carried off to her room. She felt hot all over, and was ashamed at the thought
that her little secret was known to the lady of the house; and all this terror,
shame, resentment, brought on an attack of palpitation of the heart, which set
up a throbbing in her temples, in her heart, and deep down in her stomach.

"Dinner
is ready," the servant summoned Mashenka.

Tarakanova

"Shall
I go, or not?"

Mashenka
brushed her hair, wiped her face with a wet towel, and went into the
dining-room. There they had already begun dinner. At one end of the table sat
Fedosya Vassilyevna with a stupid, solemn, serious face; at the other end
Nikolay Sergeitch. At the sides there were the visitors and the children. The
dishes were handed by two footmen in swallowtails and white gloves. Everyone
knew that there was an upset in the house, that Madame Kushkin was in trouble,
and everyone was silent. Nothing was heard but the sound of munching and the
rattle of spoons on the plates.

The
lady of the house, herself, was the first to speak.

"What
is the third course?" she asked the footman in a weary, injured voice.

Fedosya
Vassilyevna did not like dishes that she had not ordered herself, and now her
eyes filled with tears.

"Come,
don't let us agitate ourselves," Mamikov, her household doctor, observed
in a honeyed voice, just touching her arm, with a smile as honeyed. "We
are nervous enough as it is. Let us forget the brooch! Health is worth more
than two thousand roubles!"

"It's
not the two thousand I regret," answered the lady, and a big tear rolled
down her cheek. "It's the fact itself that revolts me! I cannot put up
with thieves in my house. I don't regret it—I regret nothing; but to steal from
me is such ingratitude! That's how they repay me for my kindness...."

They
all looked into their plates, but Mashenka fancied after the lady's words that everyone
was looking at her. A lump rose in her throat; she began crying and put her handkerchief
to her lips.